by Robert Crais
We parked alongside the pumping station. The sun was cooking off the rain, and, when we left the car, it was like stepping into a cloud of live steam. We moved north along the edge of the waterway for maybe eighty yards until we came to the little grave. The rain had washed away some of the soil, and part of the old man’s arm was visible. There was a musty smell like sour milk mixed with fish food, but maybe that was just the swamp.
Jo-el Boudreaux said, “Oh, my Lord.”
Boudreaux bent down, but did not touch the earth or what was obscured by it. He stood and turned and looked out across the waterway, shaking his head. “Jesus, ain’t this a mess.”
I said, “It isn’t just you and your wife anymore, Boudreaux. Rossier isn’t just selling meth to crackers. He’s in business with animals, and people are getting hurt. You can’t ignore that.”
He wiped at his forehead with a handkerchief. “Oh, holy Jesus. I didn’t know about any of this. I never knew what he was doing. That was the deal, see? I just stayed away. That’s all there was to it. I just let him go about his business. I never knew what he was doing out here.”
“This thing is going to end, now, Jo-el. You’re going to shut Rossier down.”
He looked confused. “What do you mean?”
“I mean that I can’t walk away and let it go on. If you don’t stop it, I’ll give you up.”
He blinked hard and looked from me to Joe Pike, then back to me. His face was bright pink in the sun, and slicked with sweat. “You think I’d let someone get away with this? You think I’d just turn away?”
I pointed at the grave. “That old man and that little girl are dead because you turned away.”
The pink face went red, and in that moment he wasn’t the scared blacksmith; he was the leather-tough farmer he’d had to be when he was fronting down Saturday-night drunks waving broken Budweiser bottles. He said, “I’ve got a wife to protect. I had to look out for her goddamned daddy.”
Pike moved to the side, and I stepped into Jo-el Boudreaux’s face and said very softly, “It was almost forty years ago. Edith was a child, forty years ago. You went along because you didn’t want anyone to know she’d been with a black man. It’s the race thing, isn’t it?”
Jo-el Boudreaux threw a fist the size of a canned ham at me with everything he had. It floated down through the thick air and I slapped it past, stepping to the outside. He threw the other hand, this time crossing his body and making a big grunt with the effort. I slapped it past the same way and stepped under. He was big and heavy and out of shape. Two punches and he was breathing hard. Pike shook his head and looked away. Boudreaux lunged forward, trying to wrap me up with the big arms, and I stepped to the side and swept his feet out from under him. He rolled sideways in the air, flaying at nothing, and hit the muddy ground. He stayed there, crying, hurting for himself but maybe hurting for the old man and the little girl, too. I thought Jodi Taylor was right. I thought that he was a good man, just stupid and scared, the way good men sometimes are. Somewhere nearby a fish jumped, and tiny gnats swarmed around us in great rolling clouds. Boudreaux got control of himself and climbed to his feet. He said, “I’m sorry about that.”
I nodded. “Forget it.”
He looked down at his pants. “Jesus, I look like I wet myself.”
Pike handed Boudreaux a handkerchief.
Boudreaux wiped at his hands and his face, then blew his nose. “I ain’t cried like that since I was a kid. I’m ashamed of myself.”
I said, “You ready to talk about this?”
He offered the handkerchief back to Pike but Pike shook his head. Boudreaux shrugged. “Jesus, I don’t know what to do. If I knew what to do, I wouldn’t be in this fix.” He blew his nose into the handkerchief again, then put it into his pocket. “I gotta talk with Edie.”
“Your choices are limited, Jo-el. The one choice you do not have is inaction. Inaction has led to this, and I will not allow this to continue.”
He nodded and looked at the water. It was muddy and still and probably didn’t offer much in the way of advice to him. He said, “Man, isn’t this a mess. Isn’t this a goddamned mess.” He looked at the shallow grave and what was in it. “Shit.”
Pike said, “There’s a way to survive this.”
When he said it something cold washed down my spine. I said, “Joe.”
Jo-el Boudreaux squinted at Pike, his eyes curious and hopeful. “What?”
Pike said, “Prima’s at war with another coyote named Frank Escobar. Escobar’s been trying to take out Prima because Prima’s cutting into his trade. If he knew that Rossier was in business with Prima, and he knew how to get to them, he might take them out.”
Jo-el Boudreaux’s left eye began ticking. He stared at Pike, and then he looked at me. “That’s murder.”
I said, “I don’t know if this is helping, Joe.”
Pike said, “We could make it happen. Rossier’s gone. Prima’s gone. You bust Escobar.” He cocked his head, and the hot Louisiana sun gleamed off his glasses. “No one ever has to know what Rossier knows.” He cocked his head the other way. “You see?” The world according to Pike.
Jo-el Boudreaux wet his lips and looked shaken. “Jesus Christ, I don’t know.”
I said, “There are a couple of ways to go with this, but what you can’t do is nothing. Doing nothing is why those people died.” I pointed at the little grave. “If Jodi Taylor’s back, I’ll have to see her. I have to see Lucy Chenier. You have until tomorrow, Jo-el. Talk about all of this with Edith and decide. We’ll call you tomorrow.”
He was nodding again. “Okay. Yeah. Sure. Tomorrow.” He wet his lips again, then looked again at the little grave and shook his head. He said, “Those poor folks. Those poor folks.” He started back toward the highway car.
“Where are you going?”
He answered without looking back at me. “Gotta get the coroner’s people out here and recover these bodies. Can’t just let these folks stay like that.”
He vanished behind the emerald green cane and the sawgrass.
Pike said, “What do you think he’ll do?”
I shook my head. “I don’t know, but I hope he does something.”
We waited beside the little grave, the two of us staring down at the old man’s arm, reaching up out of the earth, reaching as if he was trying to find his way back from darkness.
Two Evangeline Parish sheriff’s cars and a gray van from the parish coroner’s office came out to disinter the bodies. A powder blue Buick sedan arrived a few minutes later, driven by a man named Deets Boedicker. Boedicker owned a Dodge-Chrysler dealership and had been elected coroner, a job that mostly consisted of overseeing the technicians from Able Brothers Mortuary to make sure they didn’t screw up any evidence until the police had finished with the scene. Able Brothers had a contract with the parish. When the police had finished with their photographs and measurements, Boedicker asked how the bodies were discovered, and Sheriff Boudreaux said that a couple of kids fishing for channel cats in a bateau had found them and phoned it in. Boedicker said, “Looks like a couple of Mexes to me. Ain’t that just the thing? Sure been a lot of Mexes around here lately.” I guess that was the extent of his expertise.
Sheriff Boudreaux told a young black deputy named Berry to finish up with the mortuary people, and then he drove us back to the Eunice substation. None of the cops or coroner’s people had asked who we were or why we were on the scene. I guess they had grown used to not asking questions, and the thought of that bothered me, but perhaps it should have bothered me more.
We reached the hotel in Baton Rouge at eight minutes after seven and went to our rooms to shower and change. I asked the front desk people if Jodi Taylor had checked in, and they said she had, but when I called her room she wasn’t there. I called Lucy at home, and asked if Jodi was with her.
“Yes, she is. She flew in yesterday.”
“Good. I found out what’s going on. I spoke with Boudreaux, and I should tell Jodi about it. Things
are going to happen, and they’ll probably happen quickly, and she might be affected.”
“We’ve already eaten, but you and Joe could come over for dessert and we can discuss it.”
I told her that that would be fine, and then I showered and changed and rapped on Joe Pike’s door. He didn’t answer, so I let myself in, thinking he might be in the shower. He wasn’t. There was a haze of fog on the bathroom mirror, but all water had been wiped from the tub and the damp towels had been folded and rehung on their racks. The room was immaculate, the bedspread military tight, the magazines squared on the table by the window, the chairs undimpled by the weight of a reclining body. The only sign that he was here or ever had been was the olive green duffel on the closet floor. It was zipped shut and locked with a tempered steel Master Lode. Now you see him, now you don’t. Off doing Pike things, no doubt.
At ten minutes before eight, Lucy let me into her home with a smile that was as warm as the sun glittering off dew-covered grass. I said, “Hi.”
She said in back. The master and mistress of restraint.
Jodi Taylor was standing behind her in the entry with a glass of red wine, clearly expectant. But where it was easy to look at Lucy, it was hard for me to look at Jodi. It would be harder still to tell her the things I would tell her. Jodi said, “Did you find out what’s going on?”
“Yes. We need to talk about it.”
Lucy led us to the kitchen. The lights in the backyard were on, and Ben and another boy were using the rope to climb into the pecan tree. A black-and-white dog ran in frantic circles around the base of the tree, its rear end high and happy.
Lucy said, “I have a key lime pie. Would you like coffee?”
“How about a beer?”
She took a bottle of Dixie from the Sub-Zero and opened it for me. I drank some. The key lime pie was sitting on the counter beside a little stack of glass dessert plates and forks and cloth napkins. Two pieces of the pie were missing, and I deducted that the two boys in the yard had probably already had their dessert. I am a powerhouse of deduction. A veritable master of the art.
Jodi said, “What’s wrong? Why aren’t you saying anything?”
I had more of the beer and watched Lucy cut equal slices of the pie and put the pie on the plates.
Jodi pulled at my arm. “Why do I think that something’s wrong?”
“Because something is. Rossier and a guy named Donaldo Prima bring in illegal aliens, and sometimes it works out but sometimes it doesn’t, and they don’t much care.” I went through .everything. There was a kind of comfort in the telling, as if with each telling the memory of it would become less clear, the sharp lines of the old man and the young girl less distinct.
When I told the part about Donaldo Prima killing the old man, Jodi said, “Waitaminute. This man murdered someone?”
“Yes.”
“You actually saw a murder!”
I said yes again.
Jodi looked at her wineglass. Lucy caught the look, and refilled the glass. Jodi said, “I can’t believe this. I’m an actress. I sing, for God’s sake.” She shook her head and looked at the two boys. Outside, Ben was hanging upside down on the rope, and the other boy was pushing him. Moths and June bugs swarmed around the patio lights. The black-and-white dog danced happily. Inside, the adults were discussing murder and human degradation. Just another day in middle-class America.
Lucy said, “Did you find a way to help the Boudreauxs?”
I shook my head. “No.”
Jodi looked back at me. “What do you mean no?”
“I had hoped to find a way to force Rossier out of the Boudreaux’s lives so that they could keep their secret, but there doesn’t seem a way to do that. Rossier has no family and no known associates other than Donaldo Prima, and their association seems one of convenience. Like all criminal activities, it is a cash business, and Rossier has carefully laundered all the money through his crawfish farm. Milt Rossier answers to and depends on no one. He’s safe.”
Jodi said, “Well, there must be something.”
“We can kill him or arrest him.”
She flipped her hand. “Oh, that’s silly.”
“Prima used to work for another coyote named Frank Escobar. Prima wanted to go into business for himself, but needed a safe and reliable way to move people up from the coast. That’s Rossier. Without Rossier, Prima’s out of business. Escobar would very much like Prima to be out of business, also. If Escobar knew how to get to Rossier and Prima, he might take care of our problem.”
Lucy was not moving. Her hands were on the counter. “You’re talking about arranging a murder.”
“I am talking about sharing information with Frank Escobar, then letting nature take its course.”
Jodi crossed her arms, then uncrossed them. “Are you serious?”
Ben and the other boy came in through the French doors, slick with sweat. Ben was barefoot, and his knees were grass-stained and dirty. The other boy was wearing a Wolverine T-shirt. Ben said, “MomI’mgonnagoovertoGary’sokay? Hi, Elvis.”
“Hi, Ben.” I guess the other boy was Gary.
Lucv glanced at the clock on the wall above her sink. “I want you home by nine.”
Both boys sprinted away before she finished. “ThanksMom.”
After the front door crashed the house was silent. Lucy went to the sink, ran a glass of water, and drank it. Jodi shook her head. “Well, that killing thing is silly. You can’t just kill someone. And the Boudreauxs can’t arrest him. If they arrest him, he’ll tell.”
“The sheriff has no choice. I am not going to allow things to continue.”
Jodi put her hands on her hips. “What does that mean?”
Lucy turned back from the sink.
I said, “An old man got shot in the head because Jo-el Boudreaux is scared of something that happened thirty-six years ago. This is not acceptable.” My neck felt tight. “If things continue as they have, more old men will be shot and more little girls will die of heatstroke, and that is also not acceptable.” The tight neck spread to my scalp, and my voice felt hard and far away. “I have told Jo-el these things, and now he must do something, even if it means giving up his secret, because I will not allow any more old men or little girls to die. I will act if he doesn’t.” My temples were pounding.
Jodi’s eyes flicked to Lucy, then came back to me. “What does that mean? What will you do?”
“I’ll go to the Justice Department and give them the case against Rossier and Prima.”
Her eyes flicked to Lucy again. “But Rossier will tell on the Boudreauxs.” Tell on the Boudreauxs. Like he might tattle.
“I know.”
Jodi took one step closer to me, her eyes wide. “But then they’ll know about me.”
“I know that, too. I’m sorry.”
Jodi walked out of the kitchen and into the dining area. She raked her fingers through her hair and looked at herself in the window overlooking Lucy’s backyard. It was now dark out, and the glass was a mirror to the room. We weren’t talking about the Boudreauxs anymore; we were talking about her. She said, “What happened to confidential? What happened to protecting my interests? You promised me, remember?”
I didn’t answer. Her eyes were red-rimmed and filling. I wanted to comfort her and tell her that everything would be fine, but I could not lie to her.
I said, “I saw Boudreaux earlier today. He’s going to talk about all of this with Edie tonight, and we’ll see how they want to play it tomorrow. I’m sorry, Jodi.”
Jodi Taylor walked out. Lucy went after her, and I heard them at the front door, but I could not make out their words. I put my palms on the counter and stared between them. The Corian was flat and gray and seemed of great depth. It was a lovely surface, and I pressed against it and wondered how much pressure it could take. I thought about hot frying pans being placed upon it, and I wondered how often the pans might be placed and how hot they might be before the Corian would be forever changed.
Lucy
was gone for a long while, and then there were footsteps and she was standing beside me again, leaning with her back to the counter, her arms crossed She said, “You look like hell, Studly.”
“Thanks.”
Lucy took a deep breath, then said, “I know you were in Vietnam, but I have to ask this. Have you killed men in the course of your job?”
“Yes.”
“Have you committed murder?”
“No. Each time, I was threatened. Each time, I was trying to help an innocent person whose life was in imminent danger.”
“Have you acted to create those moments?”
I thought about it. There have been so many moments. Freckles on the arm of a man who works in the sun. “When you involve yourself in these things, you assume a measure of risk. There always comes a point when you can turn it over to the police, but at that point the risk expands. Will the police blow it? Will the client be helped or harmed? Will justice be served? There are always questions. The answers are not always clear, and are often unknown even after the fact.”
She let the breath out. “In a given moment you opt to trust yourself.”
“Yes,” I said. “Always.”
She said nothing for several moments, then she turned sideways and reached up to touch my hair. “Well. At least you’re honest.”
“As the day is long.” I tried to smile, but it wasn’t much.
“I’m having trouble with this.”
“I know.”
“The framework of the law is how we define and protect justice. If everyone were to subjectively define justice, order and law would cease and there would be no justice. There would be only anarchy.”
“Easy for you to say.”
She frowned. Humor often fails when we need it most.
“But you’re right. Of course.”
She said, “You don’t have to do this. You could just walk away, or you could act unilaterally and go directly to the Justice Department to give them Rossier, but you haven’t. You’re still in it, even though it troubles you.”